Equestrian

Staff members in charge:

Miss Jenny Warren, Yard Manager
BHS Stage 1, NVQ 2, Riding and Road Safety, Equine Specific First Aid, worked at St Bede’s Stables for 20yrs

Miss Sam Moore, Assistant Yard Manager and Head of Equine Studies
BHS Stage 1, NVQ 2 & 3, Riding and Road Safety, Preliminary Certificate in Equine Studies, A1 Assessor Levels 1-3, Equine Specific First Aid, worked at St Bede’s Stables for 11 yrs

Facilities

Full set of plastic Polyjumps, including wall, planks and fillers
Cross Country practice fences in one field including trakhener, log pile and tyre jumps. Heights 2’ to 2’6”
Permit for riding in Abbott’s Wood, which is approximately a 15 minute road ride from the yard, as well as other bridle paths locally.

The yard has City and Guilds approval to run NPTC Horse care and riding courses from Level 1 to 3. We train and assess onsite and students can gain credits from Award to Certificate to Diploma. This means that from the age of 15+ students can chose to take this qualification. Students wishing to do their Level 3 must have already gained their Level 2 and in order to achieve the required hours must be able to include this course within their 6th form academic timetable. At this level students can attain from 20 to 360 UCAS points.

We offer two forms of livery, working and full. Working livery we can offer to local horse owners as well as students, this is an economical way of keeping your horse/pony exercised in between your riding time as we use the horse for students to ride in lessons and on hacks. Full livery is offered to students only and this means that the owner is the only person to ride their horse.

We have various Instructors onsite and work with Oonagh Meyer BHSI who is our I.V. for the Horse care courses as well as Judi Piper-Dadswell (UKCC3 and Accredited Trainer for BSJA) being our Team Trainer.

Events:

Outings to local competitions as well as holding our own competitions open to the public and school students. A large Equestrian Centre just 10 minutes drive away holds both Affiliated and Unaffiliated competitions throughout the year.
Pony Club rallies onsite throughout the year.

Students that own their own horses and wish to compete are encouraged to compete as part of the school team as well as individually. We compete regularly as members of the National Schools Equestrian Association gaining places both as a team and as individuals. In 2010 our team were placed 6th in the National Championships at Addington E.C., Buckinghamshire in the Jumping with Style class. The NSEA offer competitions for Showjumping, Dressage, Jumping with Style and as of 2011 British Eventing.

Notable achievements:

School Team at present includes riders; Meg Wrenn, Hugo Godwin, Charlie Marshall, Chiara Castellini and Alex Young. All of these riders compete regularly and have gained placings in jumping classes.
Charlie and Meg also pony race, Charlie competed at Olympia 2010 in the Shetland Grand National.